Parenting

B is for Black Hole

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So, I just wrapped up the final rhyme for my parent’s alphabet book, “A is for All nighter”, but I had to revisit the letter B tonight. Because, as anyone parenting a tween knows, in addition to standing for Backtalk and Balk, the letter B also stands for Black hole which is the universally accepted euphemism for “The Kids Room”.

I bring this up because in the last few weeks T2’s room passed Def-Con 4 and was in danger of being condemned (It was even too far gone to use for missile testing). Being one of those creative types who sees a future masterpiece in every dust pile and scrap of paper (not sure where he gets that from), T2 refused to believe us when we warned that the room must be cleaned before our town of 300 people formed a health department for the sole purpose of fumigating his room.

He had tried every delaying tactic in the book for the past two weeks, when I stumbled on a strategy that will someday be be written up in parenting guides–it remains to be seen if it will be under the big Do column or if I’m about to be the most hated mom on Facebook.

Now, H.I. McDonnough once said, “Y’all without sin can cast the first stone.”

See, T1 is getting closer and closer to driving (that’ll be harder story for another day), and like all 15-year-olds he has wild fantasies about what type of car he’ll be driving next year. The older he gets the wilder the fantasy, and the bigger the bankroll he needs, so I withdrew my final bribe to T2 of a trip to the dairy bar and extended a new one of cold hard cash to T1 with one rule.

There were no rules

OK, maybe there was one rule. I mean I did want him to try to steer outgrown toys that weren’t pieces to the recycle bin. And I did suggest he wear safety goggles and a hazmat suit (It was a suggestion born of a similar experience that involve a snow shovel and a black contractor bag six years ago when T1 occupied this very room).

So, yes, I am officially the worst mom in the world, but not for the reason you think. You might say it’s because I sent my first born into the toxic waste dump at the end of the hall, but the pangs of guilt I felt were from knowingly turning T1 and T2 against each other to get the room clean.

But as old toys found their way into tag sale boxes and T2’s collection of microscopic paper scraps were dumped into the firebox, the anguished cries of “No, I wanted to save that candy wrapper” were replaced with high-pitched declarations of “I can do it”.

Ultimately T1 did 90% of the cleaning and T2 graciously took 50% of the credit, and the struggle that had begun weeks ago was over.  It took them less than two hours to get the room clean enough to eat in.

And now I’m trying to decide if the ends justify the means and if Mom is just a nice euphemism for “benevolent dictator.”

I Know Thee

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It was just beginning to snow by the time I browbeat thirteen-year-old Thing1 into a clean T-shirt and into the car last Thursday. We were headed to Hubbard Hall for a pay-what-you-will dress rehearsal of 'King Lear', and, for the first time all year, Thing1 had decided he really wanted to do homework.

“Who are you and what have you done with my son?” I asked as we got into the car. He rolled his eyes at me. Any other night, such devotion to homework would have prompted me to call a mental health professional, but we had to get to dinner before the show, and I decided not to spike the ball.

Thirteen has made Thing1 unrecognizable somedays. A winter ago on the same road, anticipating another winter Shakespeare tragedy, this same young man regaled me with the intricacies of modifying his favorite computer game. Thursday night, he kept his own council.

I asked about his day at school and got mostly monosyllabic answers to my questions. Finally, I asked the right question.

“How are you liking The Crucible?” The two of us had seen that play a year earlier at another local theatre, and I hoped the experience was enhancing his classwork.

“I'm just bored with it,” he finally answered.

“With the play?” I asked. “Or the class in general?” I thought I knew his answer. Thing1 loves math and science and considers English classes state-sanctioned torture. But I didnt know him as well as I thought.

“I'm bored with school,” he said, and my head nearly exploded with the questions that were forming. For the next fifteen minutes and then the next hour at dinner and in the theatre as we waited for King Lear to disown a loving daughter and a loyal servant only to realize he didn't understand their motives all that well, I uncovered a wealth of curiosity and dreams that my son had been quietly nurturing these last few months.

Instead of a knave bent on defying his parents' entreaties to take homework seriously, I was seeing a boy hungry for inspiration at school but determined to find it on his own if necessary. I was seeing a spark and, with it, the boy I thought I knew.

 

You Eat What You Are

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We don't stock a lot of chips or candy in our pantry, but the one thing I do stock is pretzels. Thing2 is hitting rock bottom of his fussy-eater phase, and one of the few things he likes is pretzels. He eats so many that I've begun to suspect that he's seeking some mystical pretzel secret.

I spent the last month of my first pregnancy with my feet up and my nose buried in parenting books, trying to fight off boredom and preeclampsia. I was sure the extra homework would fully prepare me for impending parenthood. Thing1, however, had the uncanny ability to challenge every bit of wisdom in those glossy baby books.

Take, for example, the fussy eating stage. My favorite tome featured gorgeous photos of rosy-cheeked cherubs eating organic apples as big as their heads. These model children with model palates apparently devoured – without complaint – every brussels sprout and broccoli leaf set before them.

Thing1 like his greens too, but peas and spinach were for wearing, not eating. The most carefully planned kid-friendly meals were met with disdain. Dinner time often devolved into tears and pleading – even Thing1 occasionally got emotional. By the time he was six years old I could count the things he would willingly eat (along with the things I could claim I knew about parenting) on one hand. Knowing you are what you eat, I worried about the impact of his limited palate on his development.

Six years later, my now-giantic Thing1 eats anything from the larder that isn't specifically marked 'Hands OFF,' and we're taking a more relaxed approach to Thing2's fussy phase. When he leaps and twirls around me while I'm making a dinner he'll find boring after two bites, it's clear that his pretzel addiction has, if anything, enhanced his physical flexibility. It makes me wonder if maybe the great pretzel flexibility secret was really something his parents had to discover.

 

White Noise

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Snow angel

Tuesday, we were looking forward to another  snowy night and day.  Like most northern regions, it takes a lot more than 6-12″ to get Vermonters flustered, but, to be perfectly honest, it’s not the snow that rattles my nerves, it’s the snow day.

I work from home.  Most of the time it’s a good racket – especially when Thing1 and Thing2 get the unexpected day off.  It’s not all sunshine and lollipops, however, especially when Thing1 and Thing2 get the unexpected day off.   They’re good kids, but, try as I might, I have not found the trick to getting them to sit quietly with their hand folded over their laps while mommy deals with customers online (if you’ve found it online somewhere, send me the link).   But, as I found out over Christmas break (almost two weeks of expected days off), silence isn’t always golden.

Seven-year-old Thing2 – already plastered to the ceiling in anticipation of Santa’s visit – had spent the morning migrating from lego projects to torturing his brother.  At one point, he managed to combine activities, causing a crescendo of ‘MOM!’ from thirteen-year-old Thing1’s room.  Thing1 had ‘accidentally’ knocked Thing2’s lego sculpture out of his hand.  The ruins of his engineering masterpiece were strewn about the floor.  One of the witnesses to the ‘accident’ was red faced, the other was in tears. I was chatting online with several customers at once and decided there wasn’t time to call in CSI to determine if the destruction was accidental or premeditated, and I ordered Thing2 to the living room for a cool-down on the iPad.  

Lips pursed, arms folded over his chest, Thing2 marched to a corner of the couch after retrieving a blanket from his bunk. He stood on the couch, arranging the blanket just so and, when he had created his cave, grabbed the iPad from the table and retreated under the patchwork tent.

Thing2 has loved the iPad since it emerged from its sleek white box.  Like most kids, he knows more about it than a seasoned software engineer, and I’m ashamed to admit that it plays babysitter too often on days like this.  

The next day, each Thing retreated automatically to his own corner.  One was in his room working on a computer project with a friend in Maine.  Two was under his tent with headphones borrowed from daddy.  For most of the morning, the only sound came from my keyboard.

That night, I finished work on time and, with a small break in the depression that had been amplifying for months, I thought an after dinner post was in order.  But as the Big Guy took up residence on the couch for his winter’s nap and I began loading the wood stove to cook dinner, I noticed that it was still very quiet.  The dishes clanking were the only noise. 

Thing2 was still under the blanket and headphones, his legos and sketchbooks gathering dust.  There was no new dance routine to watch and animate.  There was no impromptu party waiting in his room.  And suddenly I was scrambling for something to write.  

Like a nagging housewife driving her husband to the arms of a lover, my quest for quiet had silenced my inspiration with electronic lithium. 

Cousins arrived the next day, and neither child was interested in anything electronic as we celebrated Christmas.  

The Monday after the family left, the silence was deafening, but the iPad was nowhere to be found.  Thing2 emerged late in the morning, dragging his tent.  He looked for his digital drug, but, not finding it, deposited his blanket on the couch and padded over to the Christmas tree where his latest Lego project was still sitting, the remaining 500 pieces sorted into empty ice cream buckets.

For the rest of the morning, he delivered a muted monologue of the building of his new starship.  Occasionally, frustrated tears punctuated the chatter and interrupted my work.  I broke up a few fights, but, when dinner time rolled around my inspirer-in-chief joined me in the kitchen to show me his latest dance moves.  And, oddly enough, the noise made the work day better.  

I didn’t write that night, but Tuesday morning, that probable snow day got me just rattled enough to get out of bed early and start tapping.   

A Sharp Dressed Man

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Brothers in arms

Seven-year-old Thing2 was invited to a movie with a friend on Sunday.  An hour before it was time to go, he doffed his t-shirt and, wearing only his camo pants began rummaging through the closet looking for his only button-down shirt and tie.

The Big Guy and I long ago adopted the Vermont uniform of good jeans for going out and regular jeans for everything else.  Thirteen-year-old Thing1’s fashion priorities are comfort and cleanliness – in that order.  I don’t know where he got his sense of style and panache. It’s always been clear, however, that Thing2 didn’t just fall very far from our family tree, and he’s not content to put down roots for his own tree.  He’s starting his own orchard.  

The funny thing is, I know we’ve done somethings differently as we’ve guided Thing2 through infancy and the toddler years, but for the most part, the Big Guy and I like to think we’re pretty even-steven with our two boys. Despite sharing genes and parents, however, the two of them are completely different personalities, and we’re often left wondering where nurture ends and nature picks up.

The real puzzle for me, the one I am happy to consider indefinitely, is how the Big Guy and I can have two such completely different little boys in our life and still experience the same powerful love for each of them.  It’s a puzzle, but it’s also a bit of a miracle.

 

Sunshine Good Day

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Halloween happy

Jack was born in the summer.  By default, our summer travel routine and the vacation plans of most of his classmates made most of his birthday celebrations quite a bit smaller and tamer than the circus-like orgies of cake and presents that are depicted as normal and desirable in movies or ads.  His birthdays are often spent with family doing something special at the beach or going to a favorite museum.

We knew that  six-year-old Thing2’s October birthday made the more traditional kid birthday party more likely.  He’s seven today, and we planned his birthday over the weekend.  Watching Jack’s interest in traditional kid birthday parties (even when we offered) begin to fade when he was around nine, I know there won’t be many of these left.

Thing2, the Big Guy and I decided he should invite his classmates, and a few weeks ago, I filled his backpack with his homework, lunch, and seventeen invitations.  Knowing that not everyone RSVPs for kids’ parties, the Big Guy and I got the house ready for a halloween-themed party on Columbus Day Weekend. 

Three kids and their moms showed up.

At first I was a little nervous about Thing2’s reaction to the dearth of kids (and presents, of course), but he didn’t seem to notice.  For two hours, the kids cavorted in the sun and the leaves for two hours.  They beat apart and divided the treasure from a piñata filled with candy for 16 kids.  There was no pin-the-tail on the donkey or other party games.  Instead, they screamed and laughed as they chased each other through and around the house.  The Big Guy in his Herman Munster costume and I as Lily Munster sat at the table with the three other moms getting to know each other a little better than we do at the bus stop.

Thirteen-year-old Jack’s own memories of these few traditional kid parties are often impressions of sunny days, the details blurred by distance.  I know this day will blend into the collection of parties we’ve thrown for Thing2 as well.  But I’m hoping that his memory is marking that, while a larger party would have been fun too, sometimes less really is more.

Guilty Sorrow

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Boys

“Glee” has been one of my guilty pleasures for the last few years. It’s a time machine. I went to a sports-obsessed school in Ohio, and I was a misfit.  My close friends were rarely in the ‘in’ crowd.  They weren’t cheerleaders or football players, and, my gay friends came of age in an atmosphere that was even more homophobic than the one faced by Kurt, one of the main characters who comes out in the first season. 

The story reminded me of high school, but I never identified with any of the characters on the show. I didn’t even identify with the parents who are my own age.  That changed last night.

Last night Glee memorialized Finn, the character played by Cory Monteith, who died from a drug over dose during the summer. Naturally, I didn’t know Monteith personally, and ‘Finn’ is a fictional character, so at the time the actor’s death was announced, I wasn’t (as many seemed to be) grief-stricken.  I was sad, however.  I am always sad when I think of a life ended prematurely and needlessly.

I did think about the character of Finn and how they would write this event into the show. I wondered if they would take this moment to shine a light on the plague of addiction that destroys so many young lives. Then I wondered how they would write about the character’s mother.

Finn’s mother – a widow – has appeared occasionally throughout the show, and the writers have always made clear that the relationship was strong and close.  Now deprived of her only biological son, Finn’s mother, Carol, was only on screen for a few minutes of last night’s show, but it was in those few minutes – as Carol described the fear that every parent pushes to the back of their mind that I identified for the first time with any of the characters.  

None of us who have not faced the loss of a child can really know what it’s like to get that phone call.  As parents we all live with the knowledge that it could happen and the question of how we might go on if it did, but, as Carol says, “we push it to the back of our minds because it’s too terrible to contemplate.”

For me, the last eighteen months have been about living fully and authentically.  They have been about living without fear.  When Carol cried, I cried, thinking about the real parents we’ve known and read about who have had to face that fear.  

Now, though, as I look across the kitchen table at my lanky Jack, home on a sick day, it’s not the fear of things too terrible to contemplate that helps me push the possibility of losing either of my kids to the back of my mind.  It’s the determination not to let that fear keep me from appreciating every moment I do have with them and their Dad.

What Works

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Elbow grease

In my online search for flea killing and excavating solutions, I found just about everything.  I found people who’d salted their carpets to dehydrate the little monsters to death.  I found recommendations for different flea collars and pills for the cat and dog.  I found the community of pet owners besieged with these demons and offering advice is bigger than I would have imagined, and, after trying numerous cures with varying degrees of failure, I found that sometimes this mother does know best.  At least when it comes to conquering fleas.

Early my war, I stumbled onto a flea forum wherein a debate over natural vs. nuclear solutions had raged for several years.  I had been bombing and cleaning and laundering for a few days already, so my preference leaned toward any idea that involved a quick, painful, poison-filled death for the vermin.  While mine was not the prevailing sentiment on the forum, one post stood out not only because of the poster’s willingness to experiment with any carcinogenic flea solution, but because his query had, in less than 100 words, evolved into a complaint.  

The rant was an exclamation-filled diatribe decrying any natural or ‘hippie’ solution as the poster prayed that someone knew of an effective solution for fleas.  If a post could sound like a whine, this one did.  I knew it because it was a sound I had indulged in a few times over the last few days as I fantasized about a magic cure. 

But like anything in life, there was no magic.  Ultimately, there’s been experimentation and cleaning and vacuuming.  Every surface of our house has been vacuumed and dusted and mopped and then vacuumed again.

We don’t live in filth, but our house has long been an homage to clutter, so daily cleaning (as opposed to the pre-company preparation our house sees once every month or so) has been a big change in my routine.  It’s also been incredibly effective – as evidenced by the now-empty DIY flea traps I’ve set around the house – and it’s made me think about a response I would give to that angry post if I had energy or desire to confront anything but flying dust specks. 

I wouldn’t have the hippie solution.  I’d have the mom solution – probably the one my mom would have suggested.  It’s the stop-whining-buy-a-case-of-vacuum-bags-and suck-it-up (literally and figuratively)-until-the job-is-done solution. That’s the kind of advice I would have once received when faced with a  bedroom to clean or a mountain of homework to do, and it still works.  Score one more point for Mom.

When Words Don’t Work

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We drove down on Saturday to spend the night with Jack’s aunt and uncle who live in the same town where the summer camp is being held.  Their proximity to the camp was a small source of comfort to me – I knew any real emergency would not involve Jack waiting three hours for a loved one to get to him.   My stomach still ached when I woke up Sunday morning, however.  It wasn’t the 80 degree heat at 6:00 AM that was bothering my system.  It was the knowledge that I was about to leave my first born, Jack, on his own for the first time.

Twelve-year-old Jack, excited about the week ahead at a college just the night before, was quiet when he came down to breakfast.  He ate his usual mountain of food, speaking only in answer to a direct question from me or his aunt.  Feigned stoicism has been a hallmark of his tween years, but when his little brother failed to goad him into a squabble over a Lego ship in his cereal, I asked Jack if everything was okay.

“I’m just a little nervous,” he answered, pouring a third bowl of cereal.

“You’ll do great.  You’ll do fine,” His aunt and I responded in unison, but my own worry was growing.  Was he ready for this?  I was about the same age when I spent my first summer away, but for some reason, my child seemed much younger.

The morning passed quickly, filled with a last minute haircut and shopping for toiletries.  The distraction seemed to relax him, and by the time we drove him to registration, he felt confident enough to enjoy a little eighth grade humor.

The summer camp is being held at a small college where Jack will get to indulge his computing addiction for a week.  When we got to the camp the first order of business was filing out forms and giving a deposit for his dorm key.  Paper work done, we followed paper signs with big blue arrows down the hall of the college science building toward the computer lab.

The arrows lead us around a corner and into a large room with a wall of windows.  Rows of tables weighted with the latest in computing technology filled most of the room.  As Jack noticed the games on a few of the screens and the very low-tech chess boards setup at the front of the room, he began to smile.

In less than an hour we had installed him in a dorm room and met his roommate (a one-year veteran of the camp).  We brought him back to the computer lab to say goodbyes.  Now, I was the only one feeling nervous, but it was for myself.  How was I going to spend a week without seeing his face?

All nervousness had left Jack’s face as a counselor invited him to play a computer game while he waited for the rest of the group.  I knew, for the first time, he was with other science-oriented kids, and he would be fine.  The Big Guy and I were smiling as we drove out of the college campus.

But the day’s story had just begun.

The Big Guy and I made the three hour trip home with our six-year-old.  We stopped for dinner and ice cream and settled down on the couch to try and find a new, temporary routine.  Exhaustion was helping us put the day behind us when my cell phone began beeping.  I clicked the home button, saw a Skype alert and clicked it.

“Are you there?”  It was Jack.

“Are you ok?”  I texted back.

“I think I want to come home,” he wrote.

“Are you hurt?”  I asked.  “Is anyone teasing you?  Do you feel scared?”  He answered no to my questions, and I knew he was going through what all kids experience on their first night away from home.  Making sure that he felt safe, even if he was already homesick, the Big Guy and I talked and texted him to let him know we were supporting him.

“Words just don’t help right now,” he wrote after a time.   I knew they didn’t.  I knew the only thing that would help was for him to get through the first night and see things from the fresh perspective of a seasoned camper.

Technology was a blessing and a curse in the unfolding of this story.  Once, when summer camps controlled all communications, allowing only mail and care packages in and emergency phone calls out, the parents may have been aware of the first night fears.  The ability to connect from anywhere at anytime, however, ensured that we felt his angst as keenly as he did.  As we texted good night, I also wondered if the ease of connection was less a safety net and more a crutch.

I spent most of the night with my phone on, waiting for a midnight text and worrying how he was doing.  Most likely, he’s eating breakfast right now and getting into his day, his parents once again an afterthought – as we should be this week.  I’m still watching the text screen, hoping for a positive update, but knowing that at this moment that ‘No news is good news’, is a lot more than a tired cliche.

Of Beanstalks and Boys

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I had planned on re-dubbing Thing1, my twelve-going-on-twenty-year-old 'Goliath'. At the time, I was just getting used to reprimanding and rewarding my first born while looking up at him, and the name seemed to fit him. But despite his occasional flashes of teenaged angst and backtalk, my giant is a gentle one.

 

I've used pseudonyms for my boys, not so much out of fear of stalkers, but because I want them to have as much control over their identities online as I would want over mine. The stories I tell about them and the Big Guy are my vision of them, and someday they will want the chance to define themselves. But now, as Thing1 is evolving and daily declaring his independence, the nickname that fit him just a year ago, doesn't seem to do him justice.

 

I love the name we gave him. It's different. I wanted the nickname I gave him online to evoke the same feeling I have when I hear his given name. So I began running through a list of names, finding things that rhymed until I hit 'Jack'. Initially, I discarded it, continuously rattling off names as I shut the door to my office to let him Skype with his friends. I went across the hall to throw another load in the machine and while I continued the end-of-school project of sorting through hand-me-downs. As I was grumbling to myself about how much more expensive it was about to be to buy men's pants for my firstborn, I came back to the name Jack.

 

It's not particularly different, but suddenly it fit him. He has been growing like a proverbial string bean, but lately he's a bit more like Jack than the beanstalk. He's headed to overnight computer camp this summer. It's his first time away from family, but it's also the first time he's made his own choices about his education. He wanted to go to learn. He chose which course seemed most interesting. He's the one making decisions about how he'll finance and build a new computer.

 

This boy who has begun to thrive on challenge is so much more than a mischievous imp (although he's still that quite often). He's ready to make his own adventures. He's Jack.

 

Heroes Begin at Home

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A long fuse

When our twelve-year-old, Thing1, was about four, he began begging us for a baby brother.  He didn’t want more playdates with other boys, and he definitely didn’t want a baby sister.  Fortunately, we were able to deliver on his request two year later, and, even though we couldn’t take credit for Thing2’s gender, Thing1 was perfectly happy to go along with our contention that Thing2 was the big present that Christmas.

Thing1 took his big-brother responsibilities very seriously.  He read to Thing1and held his hand on the jungle gyms.  He made sure that I didn’t pick any outfits or Halloween costumes that violated the boy code of ‘not-too-cute’.  It didn’t take Thing2 long to decide that his older brother was a hero.  Six years later, Thing1 is learning that no good deed goes unpunished.

The two of them share the same wants these days, and the perfect harmony that characterized their early years together goes off key with increasing frequency.  They still share a bunk room, and, for a time, I thought the close proximity was the primary cause of their constantly overlapping material desires.  But the other night, as the Big Guy and I orchestrated the circus that is homework hour at our house, it became apparent that it does’t always take the opposing forces that lead to conflict don’t have to be equal in size or determination.

The increased expectations and volume of homework this year drove Thing1 to study at the desk we put in his room two years ago.  Thing2, however, still needs more supervision if we want his 20 minutes of homework done before eight o’clock at night, and we’ve designated the kitchen table as his study space.  Anything can draw our happily distractible six-year-old away from his studies, and, if we don’t keep a close eye on him, we know we’ll find him in the bunk room pestering his older brother.

Last week I had a chance to watch this ballet once more.  This time, however, a different angle made it seem like a completely new production.  Thing2 had just been restored to his chair after bouncing around the house, showing us his afternoon artwork.  Thing1 had the door to their room closed.  Hoping a little music would help Thing2 concentrate, I hit play on If I Fell, one of his favorite Beatles’ songs.

My plan backfired immediately.  Thing2 began singing, revealing that he wanted to sing Beatles at the school talent show.  The love song ended, but instead of bending his head to his work, Thing2 hopped off the chair and ran to the bunkroom, calling to his brother through the door to let him know about the talent show plans.

“Leave me alone,” Thing1 yelled through the door.  “I’m trying to work!”  I ordered Thing2 back to his seat and opened the door to let Thing1 know yelling at his brother should be reserved for actual crimes.  He came out to defend his reaction and, after we discussed the right tone to use with his parents, Thing1 trudged back to his desk.  Thing2, watched the exchange and hopped up again as soon as his brother began his retreat.  It was like watching a match chasing a long fuse.

I got up to pull my first-grader back to his homework before a fight broke out, but when I got to the door of the bunk room, Thing2 was hanging on the back of his brother’s chair, arms wrapped tightly around Thing1’s neck, consoling him while revealing his talent show plans.  Thing1, still miffed, was trying to write while ignoring the stranglehold, but then I saw him pat his baby brother’s hand.  At that moment I knew he also realized that this wasn’t pestering.  It was worship.  Sometimes it hurts, but even when he’s trying to find breathing space, Thing1 seems to understand that being someone’s hero is not just a responsibility; it’s a gift.